


Patron Saint

by ergo_existence



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: College AU, M/M, reference to homophobia, reference to sexual content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 11:30:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2268087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ergo_existence/pseuds/ergo_existence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Chicks dig poetry and shit, I mean, I quote it to them and they’ll be all over me. Besides, I’m betting on a hot librarian on campus. If I go in there and swipe up, I dunno, Shakespeare, damn, I’ll be rolling in it.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Patron Saint

**Author's Note:**

> Hmm - struck with a muse at crunch time on assignments. Golly. I hope you enjoy and let me know what you like, so on and so forth. Thank you.

“It’s one week before we leave for the dorms, and your sleeping pattern is as bad as Grif’s. If I come around at midday tomorrow and you’re in bed, I’m telling Donut.”

The shrill voice of Simmons is only as piercing as the light streaming through the room. Richard Simmons has taken it upon himself to become the one in charge of Tucker, considering they _were_ to be sharing a dorm room together (in his astounding logic he also assumes that Tucker will actually _listen_ ) _._

“Fuck off, Simmons,” he grumbles, pulling the covers over his head in a futile attempt to avoid Simmons and the attitude he adopted – a kind of early bird superiority - when he was first to rise above everybody else in the morning. And told others off in the process for their habits.

“I’m not leaving until you get up.”

“What are you, my mother?” They battle for the sheet, a childish tug back and forth, and Simmons wins because he’s _insistent._ He yelps, though, when he notices Tucker’s state of undress – really, it’s his fault he assumed Tucker would be dressed.

“Stupid fucking—fuck you, Tucker!” He’s beet red, but hastily covers his face –pale, ginger hair neatly combed, with shaky hands and glasses that are taped in the middle. They’re tiny little spectacles that Simmons has to raise his head up to peer through them, reading words on the page with a dignified jut of his jaw, despite the embarrassment at not having purchased a suitable pair yet.

Tucker scoffs, hastily trying to find something to cover himself up. It’s not like he _expects_ Simmons to come storming in, a furious, oddly paternal tornado, but that appears to be the way things are going. He half-dreads being stuck with Simmons at college. The benefits of living with a nerd, though, means there _are_ bribes for doing work, and he knows Simmons inside out (as much as he regrets to say so); all it requires is a promise of the new _Battlestar Gallactica_ on DVD, or a figurine or _something_ equally nerdy, and Tucker was out of homework for a week.

“You know, Grif is in the dorm down the hall. Talk about unlucky,” Simmons comments from the chair he’d claimed, a stained thrift-shop leather chair Tucker picked up one weekend out with Church. It was the only good to come of times with him.

“He’s majoring in philosophy, right?” Tucker asks, slightly muffled by the shirt he pulls on; it’s whatever’s closest, and he can almost _feel_ the look of disgust on Simmons.

“Yeah. I don’t know why.”

 _“Think about it, Tucker,” Grif says, face alight with some kind of devious plan – likely stupid, likely about avoiding work and any kind of physical activity. “Going to school is sitting around all day and doing assignments._ Philosophy _is sitting around all day and talking, isn’t it? All I have to do is copy Plato or whatever and that’s an easy mark.”_

Well, he knows the answer, and it very well wasn’t appropriate to tell Simmons yet. (He’s saving it for graduation, if Dexter Grif makes it that far – the look on Simmons’ face is something worth it, to power through the four year degree).

“So what about you? Why English Literature?” Simmons asks, eyebrows raised like _I can’t believe it, really._

_“Chicks dig poetry and shit, I mean, I quote it to them and they’ll be all over me,” Tucker adds later, lounging beside Grif. The epitome of laziness, and they revel in it. “Besides, I’m betting on a hot librarian on campus. If I go in there and swipe up, I dunno, Shakespeare, damn, I’ll be rolling in it.”_

“Uh,” Tucker stops for a second, finding some respectable socks, “You know. Knowing more about the language – um, that sort of shit.”

“Sure,” Simmons mutters, adding something like _stupid idiot can’t respect English_ or something to that effect. Tucker normally tunes it out. “What are your plans? Live it up for the last week?” The way his voice cracks suggests he has no intention of _living it up_.

“I’m opening up a lemonade stall. 50% off for nerds that have nothing to do,” is what slips out as Tucker leaves his room and he can tell Simmons has rolled his eyes in the process.

“They’re starting a rerun of _Antiques Roadshow_ ,” Simmons says casually beside him in the kitchen, moments later after _I’m not a nerd!_ and _Yes, you are_ then a final repent of _Okay, maybe I am. Whatever, can’t change me._

Tucker chooses to ignore his statement.

“Between now and when we leave, I can watch six episodes,” Simmons continues, handling a jar of mustard and a knife. He looks brilliantly embarrassing and, Tucker decides, _would_ be attractive if he didn’t get around in those vests. In retrospect to that, Simmons was around to make him look handsome, so it was really quite even in the end. “Last time I watched it, there were Edwardian plates I was _sure_ I had in my cupboard, but they were just Japanese knockoffs. _Apparently_ , in the early 1900’s—”

“Simmons,” Tucker hastily cuts off, “Just because I’m not Grif does _not_ mean you talk to me about _Antiques_ fucking _Roadshow_. It’s fucking weird.”

“Shut up.” The weak reply is enough to signal the end of talk of vintage wares.

There’s a quiet lapse between the two, Simmons caught up in making a sandwich with such precision Tucker wonders what is the _point,_ and he himself chose to delve into whatever was leftover. Menial tasks before the drudgery of college, and not being legal to drink yet (Simmons absolutely _insists_ no alcohol in their dorm, and it’s kind of hard to ignore him when he’s particularly sure about specific things) left a week of exhilarating activities (read: nil).

“So Grif and I are going to Blood Gulch’s college…” Tucker begins, stops for a moment to consider across the pine coffee table from Simmons, furiously focussed on his phone in his lap. “Why are you going, dude? You could’ve gone interstate, Denver or something. To like, a better one. For smart people. Not saying you’re smart.”

There’s a noise of recognition but Simmons doesn’t respond for a few moments, then eventually, “I just wanted to, I guess.”

“Simmons. Four years, for real.”

“What?”

“Let me get this straight.” Tucker carefully sets aside his plate, intently looks at Simmons. “You’ve had a crush on Grif since _freshman year_ in high school. You’re going to the college he is when you could have done _better_. Dude, it’s _really obvious._ ”

“ _Antiques Roadshow_ isn’t on for another week. I had the dates mixed up.”

“Are you even listening?”

Tucker seems to realise then he needs a beer and, preferably, Grif to come and take Simmons away. There’s only so much he can deal with for now.

His little house is totally worth leaving, though, not like he’d admit living in a dorm with Simmons is nicer. (He’s also possibly deluding himself, alas, Tucker just had to find out).

\--

Their room, in Simmons’ words, is _comfy,_ it’s _cosy,_ and there’s a menacing threat of ‘If you’re a slob, I’m burning all of your clothes.’

The morning light hits the room so, in the September autumn, Tucker can peacefully, fitfully, sleep in without the disturbance from the sun that seemed to be the bane of his existence. Student loans left uncounted in that conclusion.

There’s a frightful yell, the day before classes began, that awakes a half-asleep Tucker, fumbling for his clothes in the still relatively alien room. He knocks his foot twice on the end of the bed, hisses, and is unsure as to where his second suitcase has disappeared to.

The yell is also distinct, Tucker ensures to note. It’s one that’s mixed in with various cuss words, and the icing (and confirmation) is, “ _You fucking idiot, Caboose!_ ”

He _has_ to see this.

A bloated kit bag sits in the hallway, down the panelled wood walls and hard floor, with a _Michael J. Caboose_ written on the side, definitely, by Caboose in permanent marker. This is his immediate clue as to where Church’s room was. He did wonder why Church had no listed roommate.

Church has his lips pursed, when Tucker makes it to his door left ajar, hands clenched in the fashion where he _tried_ to reel in his rage (which worked, mostly, bar for where Caboose was involved). “What do you _mean_ administration said you could room with me?”

“Well, the nice man at the front desk told me they had it mixed up, and that I was in your dorm, and I may have put in a request, but he made a mistake also and was late,” Caboose pours out, his voice progressively dipping lower as he melted under Church’s glare.

Tucker smugly stands in the doorway, says, “Admin is pretty shit with these things, Church. Why don’t you welcome your roomie?”

“Shut the fuck up,” he tersely disregards, midnight black hair asunder, green eyes full of daggers. He wasn’t imposing physically, but anybody with enough common sense knew when he blew a fuse, he _was_ quite intimidating. Unless you’d known him since before high school and could _totally_ get over his shit really quickly. “I don’t need _you_ gloating. I was told I had a dorm all to myself.”

“But, Church! We can have sleepovers – eat popcorn – oh, we can play boardgames!” Caboose is the very picture of jubilance and naïveté; he has a shaven head – with just a tuft of hair at the back he’s missed – and a way of holding himself, straight and tall, that made him, in all his moronic glory, look cocksure about his opinions and ideas. It was (as a general consensus) a particularly damning and terrifying combination.

“Yeah, Caboose, I’m pretty sure that’s the last thing I want to do.” Church cups his forehead, hiding from Tucker’s shit-eating grin. “I’m going to find admin. Give them a talking to.”

A distinct image pops in Tucker’s head, looking at the dumb smile on Caboose – he, hopping on a bus, leaving his something of numerous siblings behind, maybe starting conversation with a passenger beside him (even better, one with the temperament of Grif, his sarcasm in public something beautiful to watch). His bag on his lap, watching the scenery morph by but not really, because his mind tends to move as much he feet do. It is a small beacon of relief (and, laughable in that way he has grown used to over the years), to the nagging knot in Tucker’s stomach about his first day on campus.

“Good luck with that, I hear he’s kind of an annoying dick. Or maybe you’ll get along,” Tucker says, referring to the notorious Vic, watching Caboose wander over to the bed he’s seemingly claimed.

“Thanks for the encouragement. Good to know you have my back.” A customary scowl appears on Church’s face, and it’s just their typical pleasantries; Tucker’s sure, certainly sure, not much has changed in this hellhole of a town he _can’t_ quite escape.

Perhaps the psyche of Blood Gulch’s citizens has become so they are conditioned to never leave; a kind of Stockholm Syndrome for a location, so dreadful yet home, in some unfathomable way. This end of Colorado, near hiking trails and calls of the hidden wild was, inexplicably, inescapable.

He wanders back down the hall, leisurely, taking in the fact he’s up at 7AM on a day he _should_ have slept in – Tucker’s hesitant to admit, he’s half anxious about his first class. With a grimace he remembers looking at the timetable, a horror, a _gasp,_ class on a Monday morning, beginning at 8AM. His choice, the first class of the week being a Wednesday afternoon, was dismissed and had been relegated to the dastardly, unforgiving brute of the week. _Monday._

“Hey, Tucker!” he hears called, and he turns, sees Church with his hands on his hips in an oddly strange fashion, and for a moment Tucker believes there’s perhaps going to be _something nice_ coming from him, until, “I don’t think you can pick up chicks with an English degree.”

“Yeah? I don’t think you can pick up chicks with a shitty goatee like that,” he easily shoots back, pulling on one of his dreadlocks for extra measure, _my hair’s better than yours, asshole_.

“At least I can grow a beard!” is the parting from Church, now heading, presumably, out of the dormitory and in the direction of the administration building. He’d almost go with him, but he has no need to see Vic this early. Simmons had already gone to complain about the lack of hot water, received, ‘Well, dude, can’t help you there much, you think, ah, you could go a little longer without it? You know, you dudes should be fine.’ All fine for a receptionist slash coordinator, but with his voice that sounded like nails against a chalkboard, it was an unpleasant experience, as far as Simmons’ motions and irritable mood went.

Tucker plans on returning to bed, though he’s already dressed and Simmons is intent on a textbook, seated on his bed. “So what’s it you’re studying again?”

“Theology,” Simmons says, then adds, “And modern history.” He bites his nails, hair hiding his face and glasses askew.

“I thought you’d do computer science or something. Like a hacker. Mainframe and shit.”

He’s not deigned with anything but a hum.

\--

His alarm miraculously goes off at 6:30AM – he manages to wake up, due to the early bedtime imposed on him by his roommate he’s slowly learnt to loathe over the years – and he’s up before Simmons even is, hardly coherent.

He needs coffee, of course, his bag—he’s not prepared to be a college student _at all_. The textbooks were at _least_ more expensive than a tuxedo and a bottle of wine. He knows what he’d rather spend it on, by any means.

The sun is barely up. _He_ is barely up, staggering out to where the cafeteria should be ( _down the hallway, stairs, a building across –_ the campus laid out by dorms, the admin and cafeteria, the staffrooms, faculties then classrooms, library, divided up so). A terracotta was the basic theme, mixed in with greys and harsh navy blues here and there, roofs that looked patched up like a tweed jacket, obviously recently (Tucker suspects) fixed after the summer storms that, ostensibly, lead to numerous older buildings leaking. So Blood Gulch went.

There was a college green, a humongous courtyard with picnic tables dotted here and there, laid claim to by birds this time of the morning; the sun, not yet clipping over the top of the buildings, kissing the tops of the chimneys here and there. The dorm common room had a neat, red brick fireplace that was, supposedly, a hub of activity; Tucker thinks he will check it out, soon enough. For scientific reasons (Church would scoff: of course he means the _ladies_ ).

Trees littered the campus, the paths, ones that grew well in a climate like Blood Gulch, the same ones Tucker grew used to after moving to it from Detroit, a few months off eleven years old and already familiarising himself with Leonard Church. Fucker took his _Hot Wheels_ set – Tucker’s not yet forgiven him.

Students, he suppose, that have the same cursed timetable as he were lingering in the cafeteria, haggard looks of weary sophomores (no longer the youthful optimism found), pissed juniors (waiting for senior, scared of the future), and the snooty seniors themselves (who, underneath a stoic exterior, Tucker _knows_ they’re as fucked as the year below them and past them). Tucker finds himself at the lower of the pack, the new kid, so he holds his head high – winks at a cute girl with bubble-gum pink hair, who promptly rolls her eyes, so he gives up on _that_ – and finds his way to food. Glorious canteen food that would be his fuel in the cruel environment of academia and social competition.

He wasn’t expecting company and doesn’t find any, except for a rather tired-looking boy, (as the rest, but his shadows under his eyes looked permanent, not brought on by bad sleep, necessarily, but restless night after restless) with a mop of blond hair that looked chopped with kitchen scissors, an overgrown fringe just touching his left cheek; freckles that spotted his face, his arms; curiously, a buttoned shirt, with multiple – _holy fuck_ – cats all over it, running cats, sitting cats, all cartoon caricatures, some orange, black, and there’s a few with berets, from what Tucker can discern. He sits diagonally from Tucker, and he’s certainly not intending to talk to Tucker, but what does Tucker do best?

“’Sup,” he says, trying to play it cool. He needs more friends outside of Church and Simmons, as well as Grif if you count sarcastic asses you bond with. Well, that’s kind of all of his friends. Tucker reconsiders the definition of _friend._

“Hello.” His voice is more mellow than others, nothing of the nervous pitch Simmons can reach with ease, not quite so angry as Church tended to be, nor curling or lazy as Grif’s. He returns to his food, eating more quickly than Grif left with a box of Oreos.

“I’m Tucker.” He leans his elbow on the table, tries to appeal to his tablemate.

“Washington. I have class now,” he answers, standing up with his plate – food left on it – nodding his head slightly.

“Fuck Blood Gulch.” Tucker grumbles to himself, decides _well, they can’t all be mysterious_ , until he spots a girl with lavender streaks talking to Washington – as his name went – and yeah, anybody that didn’t go to Blood Gulch’s shoddy high school is _definitely_ going to be an enigma. Fuck knows why they chose this place, of all.

His stomach shrinks quickly, already nervous about his class – Tucker doesn’t _do_ nervous, but perhaps he’ll allow an exception for his first day. Blood Gulch operates _differently,_ compared to the regaling of popular culture and colleges – Blood Gulch throws you out into the wilderness of assignments, classroom numbers, professors’ names, fountain ink pens, without the aid or guide of anybody but a little notebook entitled so: _Guide to your College Experience, written by Professor Flowers_. It contained elegant script in the titles, much smaller text than should be allowed for the actual information. (It also cost thirty dollars).

Much to his delight – and dread – the classroom is neatly labelled and easy to find; if there is one positive attribute to Blood Gulch’s university, it’s its layout.

He stumbles into the classroom, earlier than anticipated – to his surprise but also disdain, because he doesn’t _like_ the hidden sorts, boy with the freckles sits in middle row, already writing notes down. Of course. A brainy type.

It’s a choked classroom, too, a green-grey that’s questionable at best (though at least the seats were comfortable, by Blood Gulch standards), and he has a feeling all of the classes are like the rest. Ascending levels of desks curve around the professor’s desk and blackboard, whiteboard. The fluorescent lights were at least of good quality; the thing this place did best was its artificial and natural light. The sun shined brilliantly, even in winter, and the installations always seemed to be in such condition there were rarely ever problems – wind, hail, sunshine or rain, electrical outages, they were always fine.

Washington, as the name returns to Tucker ( _boy with the freckles_ seems to have a more flirty ring to it), looks up and raises both his eyebrows (there’s something in the water that makes citizens of this place develop an eyebrow-raising habit, but it seems natural on him) and looks back to his notepad. He possibly already pegs Tucker as the slacker type. He’s very right.

Tucker deliberately sits behind him, and he watches Washington’s back stiffen. He anticipates a usual amount of traded caustic remarks, if they ever reach that - he hopes Washington is more witty than Church.

“Is there something you’re trying to accomplish?” is the flat question from Washington turning around to stare at Tucker. It certainly surprises him, with his own toss-up of how long he would need to tempt Washington into talking to him first.

He shrugs his shoulders. “I just wanted to sit down, dude.”

“I’m sure. That’s why I could feel you staring at the back of my head.” Washington has _very_ grey eyes – he’s not seen such grey before, and it’s not a boring grey, but nonetheless Tucker chooses not to spend too long analysing them. Verdict: quite nice. (Tucker notes, quietly, he does not issue _verdicts_ on _eyes_ ).

“Interesting, um, haircut?”

“Really.”

“Yeah, I’m digging it. I have this friend – Donut, he goes on about haircuts and hair and you know – and he’d uh, he’d like it too. I think. I don’t really know. I don’t pay attention.” _Shit, fuck,_ he’s rambling. He _doesn’t_ ramble.

“I cut it myself. I don’t think it’s anything notable.”

“Still looks…good. Shit.” Tucker pinches the end of his nose, drags his messenger bag onto his lap. “Uh, so you signed up for English lit?”

“Yes. Did you happen by here accidentally? If you’ve lost your way—” Tucker believes he’ll become intimate with that patronising glint in Washington’s eyes, so he interrupts—

“I signed up a while ago, thanks. Shakespeare and shit.”

“ _Shakespeare and shit_? Well intimate. I suppose it’s enough of a stretch, literature is a difficult thing to define – mind you, I’ve never heard something so succinct.”

“It’s like, post-post-modernism.” Tucker nods his head for emphasis. “It starts here. Like Beat.”

“ _First thought, best thought_? Don’t tell me you’re one of those,” Washington says – Tucker is beginning to think this guy is humourous after opening up a little, but there’s a certain feeling there’s always going to be a bit of a bad-boy wall. Tucker takes out a paper and pen (with a flourish, uncaps it), writes the date at the top neatly as possible. In honest terms, it’s only barely more composed than Simmons’ quick scrawl on a bad Friday.

“I guess. Uh, it kinda makes sense, though. Go with your gut or whatever,” Tucker replies, pursing his lips as he considers what to title the page, what would be the proper way to take notes – should he invest in a laptop? It’s so bothersome and _heavy_ , and Grif already convinced him to leave it. Simmons said handwriting notes also increased the ability to memorise the work – Church, in his never-ending wealth of wisdom, said to _get with the fucking times_.

“It’s better to analyse things than make rash decisions. Tactical.” Other students begin filing in – perhaps they’ll have thirty at best in their class – and Washington’s eyes flicker to the doorway, Tucker now realising he’s fully turned to the side to talk to Tucker. “You can call me Wash, if you want.”

“What’s the deal with the state name, anyway?” He’s trying in for one last piece of conversation.

“Tradition, I suppose.”

The professor enters then – who introduces himself as Professor Flowers, a sweet smile and a _you can just call me Flowers_ – he looks Native American, black hair that’s longer than Tucker’s (he’s a little jealous), and, characteristically for their location, is dressed in a cross between casual and formal wear for a teacher.

He delves straight into their unit – unsurprisingly beginning with Shakespeare. Tucker nudges Wash’s shoulder, and he receives a _don’t touch my shoulder_ but that’s enough to sate Tucker’s satisfaction at their subject.

The lecture flies by quite quickly, homework assigned already ( _two of his sonnets to deconstruct, judge students’ ability to begin with, working on more personal basis_ ), and before he knows it he’s filing out of the building, looking for Wash, but he’s gone already.

He takes his time, soaking in the surroundings of the college – he finds himself by the philosophy building, not a short walk down a little paving of stones and left – he spots a head of red hair, a maroon shirt and pants far too tight.

“Simmons, I thought you didn’t have class yet?” he asks, coming up to stand beside him. “Taking extra credit or something?”

“Waiting for Grif, lazy-ass wants me to help him carry his books,” Simmons answers immediately, an air of annoyance about him.

“What’d he bribe you with?”

He sighs. “He bought me a Spode jug.”

“Uh…that’s one of those rare—”

“Spode is one of the most respected brands in crockery. I couldn’t pass it up,” he says, almost sadly, _I’ve given in, Tucker_.

He laughs at Simmons, harshly, “Wonder what a set you’ll have by the end.”

“Shut up.” He pauses, looks down at Tucker – only two or three inches shorter, but still – says, “Don’t think I’m doing your work just because you buy me stuff. I’m not doing that anymore.”

“Except for Grif, obviously.”

“It’s just this one time.”

Tucker sets up a silent bet with himself: definitely will not be one occurrence.

“See you later, then. I’m going to the library.” He punches Simmons in the arm, laughs at the sputtering Simmons and heads down the gravelly path that led to his destination.

There’s a certain book smell – dusty, woody, camphor emanating from the bookshelves – and the librarian at the front desk looks friendly, a calm smile on his face. He’s certainly not the head – a student, surely – but he has an authority about him, running over the keys on the keyboard. Distantly, Tucker recalls a similar hair colour, eyes, nose, on the girl with the lavender highlights earlier. He wonders if they’re siblings. He _does_ have a good eye, after all.

The literature section is easy to find, the Dewey Decimal system more simple than Tucker assumes, and – he may have an ulterior motive here – he doesn’t immediately head to find his Elizabethan playwright, no, he scouts out to see if there’s any hot chicks around. It’s in his nature.

He doesn’t find any, _but,_ he does find Wash stacking away books, carefully but firmly.

He’ll play dumb just for a bit.

“Hey, Wash,” he says, putting both hands on the end of the cart and leaning across. “Where’s the lit section?”

There’s a sigh, similar to Simmons’ one earlier, but more bored, and, “I just saw you walk past it.”

“Watching me? Ooh.”

“Peripheral vision. It’s right behind you, from this aisle.” He returns back to his books. Tucker is disappointed his naturally flirty demeanour is brushed off so easily, with not even a _yes_ or _no._

Thus he walks away, rakes his eyes over the spines – _Shakespeare & Sonnets, Sonnets and Shakespeare, Shakespeare: A Man in Focus_ – until he’s accosted by Wash, kneeling down beside Tucker. “I recommend _this_ one,” he says, pulling out one of the titles Tucker rushed over, a beautiful glossed red book, “I own this myself.”

“Thanks?” he says, taking the book, turning it over. “I would have thought we’d only need our textbooks for this.”

“Well, it varies. Besides, there’s something more personable about a book versus a textbook with blurb and annotations all around it.” Wash regards Tucker coolly, standing up to return to his post with books to put away.

He might have been right about hot librarians. He’s never been more confused in his life.

\--

“It was an okay class, I guess,” Simmons says, sitting on his bed, textbook on his lap – it’s going to become a classic pose, soon enough. “There’s an old guy in my class – he likes being called Sarge – he was in the military, you know, really cool! And he’s studying now. He gets a degree because of his service or something.” His voice picks up, happier, hopeful, as he remembered this Sarge.

“So what’s he like? Really old?” Tucker leans his head against the wall, a hard brick, no covering.

“Yeah…but he’s great.”

And Tucker hoped his kiss-ass tendencies would ebb after entering college; it’s only going to increase, at this rate.

“What about you?”

“Eh, it was Shakespeare. Shit like that.” He yawns, cursing the cycle Simmons has instilled in him since the week before their arrival to campus – he consoles himself with the fact he’s not stuck with Caboose. He’s genuinely concerned for Church’s safety.

“Do you miss high school?” Simmons’ voice is tentative, unsure; a product of the uncertainty of college and the abrupt change. Tucker can sympathise, for now.

“No, not really. I mean, we had more classes and lived with our parents. At least now it’s kinda, I don’t know – _different_.” He scrutinises Simmons. “Do you?”

“No! No way. I guess it’s just the change.” He hears a sigh - he recognises this one, it’s the one associated with the mention of his by-the-book Catholic parents, Sunday church, and as a byproduct (from what Tucker understands) the numerous insecurities he has learnt to bottle up quite neatly, pouring out at the most inconvenient of times.

“I’m gonna go get a shower,” he says, avoiding any further awkward, touchy-feely conversation that Tucker is _no good_ with.

By the odd coincidence of a student body of 5 000 – roughly as the previous year’s statistics reported – he bumps into Grif and Church on his way to the communal showers, both chatting amicably. He never quite understood how they meshed, but they did in some essential way.

Catching up to them proved effortless – Grif’s steady, slow pace was easy – and Grif rolls his eyes, says, “How’s the kiss-ass?”

“Eh, he met some old dude in his class. Levels of kiss-assery have increased exponentially.”

“When did you start learning big words, Tucker?” Church asks, his usual _oh,_ Tucker _, you’re a surprise everyday because I continually underestimate you_.

“English lit. Suck it.”

“No thanks.”

“You guys are really stupid,” Grif comments articulately, nodding his head. He looked darker than the last time he’d seen him – he went back home to Hawaii for two weeks before returning to college, his sister now permanently living there (he, somewhat disapproving, but unable to stop her as she was, the words went, ‘going to rock the surf scene so hard they forget the name “Dex”,’). His hair looks freshly trimmed – odd, for him, but Tucker suspects an intervention from Simmons. As it goes, for them.

Church beside him looks the same, as he always seemed to: even with the facial hair, thick locks, and eyes that seemed far too cynical for his age, there seemed to be a youthful manner about him (Tucker doesn’t have a clue how, considering the squinty glare he gave to anybody, including his friends – however, it could possibly be the skin creams Donut gifted him as a college present).

When he returns to bed later – with full knowledge of the fact there had been not even a single party organised yet – he finds a Simmons asleep on the top of his bed, textbook slewn to the side. He rolls his eyes, not a patron saint ready to help his roommate find his way under the covers. He does, however, turn off the light and remove the textbook from underneath his left arm.

\--

The rest of his classes go as so: a Tuesday afternoon three hour lesson (lord), Wednesday repeat, and a neat two hour tutorial on Thursday, bright and early as his Monday morning death – these with Flowers and another teacher, for the final class, going by the name of Delta only, one of the obscure Classics teachers that lurked in the shadows. A rumour that one of the drunken girls, over six foot with glistening black hair and muscles that would _probably_ squeeze him in half, said to Tucker, “Yeah, I hear – I hear all those Greek guys are like, top secret agents.”

He called her an angel and asked her to get a drink for him. It was in the dormitory common room, not far from the mini fridge stocked with beer the juniors claimed, the very one he bemoaned not visiting, but he’s gathered at this point the only real creative activity is cooking marshmallows over the fire. He does, indeed, leave after that.

Though Simmons quickly attempts to remedy the lack of recreation so:

“And you bought a record player _why_?” Tucker questions this; it’s a nicely varnished mahogany on the stand, a copper that looks old, old, and he can obviously tell, now, that Simmons’ free time during his Tuesday lesson was spent travelling out to the nearest town, hunting down an antique shop, spending half of his allowance for the month, carrying it back on public transport, and planting it in their shared dorm _which_ , for its bohemian charm of the walls, did not necessarily suit the player Simmons has found a home for.

“It’s called a _gramophone_ ,” Simmons corrects, dodging any reasoning. He has a polish cloth in hand, lovingly brushing over the _record player._ “And I saw vinyls on sale. I figured, well, why not?” His voice breaks; he’s lying, or anxious. Possibly both.

“You realise you’ve got it right on my desk, right?” Tucker considers this. “Actually, that means I have a good reason not to do my homework.”

“Go to the library.” He says it so simply, so offhandedly, not like _I’ve claimed your desk, I’m a complete hypocrite because of the incident with Grif and his mini pancake cooker he kept in my room in high school, on my own desk._ “And I remember when Donut was in hospital – remember the gang attack? in junior? – he loved listening to the stereo I brought, with my Sinatra discs. I thought, well—”

“So you’re going to host a Donut party, in here,” he says, in disbelief at Simmons’ attempt of _inviting_ some socialisation. “What’s gotten into you, dude?”

“Shut up.” Simmons steps back and inspects the sheen, turning to check the two grimy windows and how the light streams in. “Hm. Worth it, I think.”

Tucker groans. One half wants to follow the suggestion of going to the library, handling his Shakespearean novel tenderly and pretending to work in the corner – the other contests this, after, well, finding out Wash had apparently scored a job there for the rest of the year. He would not get away with sitting there listening to music aimlessly.

A conclusion is swiftly met as he watches Simmons rummage through a plastic bag, pull out a Piaf vinyl and carefully attach the disc – grabbing everything he needs to pull meaning from _A Lover’s Complaint,_ he very quickly leaves, shuts the door with a finality, struts down the hall so: he manages to ignore all other dorm inhabitants, as he has done well so far.

The air is cold for September, no longer a hangover of summer present, though the sky is bright and blue, a kind that stretches from the horizon and, if Tucker cranes his neck up, he would see the lightest blue which is reminiscent of a June day, forgiving the temperature.

The grass relents beneath his feat, and he knows the groundsman probably is quite lazy for letting it grow so long, or students are fond of its length to stretch out for naps in the afternoon – he thinks it’s a Grif thing to do. Caboose would very likely pick the grass, throw it in the air in celebration of the cooler weather and find himself covered in green shrapnel.

At the desk there is again the man from last time – Tucker guesses, now, he’s possibly twenty one or so – and he takes note of this, vaguely, thinking about routines and boring things that tend to enter his brain when near a hub that Simmons is intimate with.

Wash is present, too, standing at the circle of printers students are given to use, studiously examining the heap of papers sitting atop the copier; his eyes are narrowed in annoyance, so Tucker walks over and stands beside him, wordlessly.

The paper reads so: _YOGA & MASSAGE EVERY THURS. @ DORM COMMON ROOM BLOCK A COME ONE COME ALL GET A RUB_, repeated several times in square tables. Tucker sneaks out a laugh that, as he has been told, sounds suspiciously stupid; it is apparently quite a childish snigger.

“This is my job. I don’t get paid enough,” Wash mutters beside him, slamming with his hand the paper back where he picked it up from.

“I have a pretty good feeling I know who printed that,” Tucker says, eyes scanning the rows of computers, some with a heavy box on the back of the screen, an off-white colour that made him think of all the grease in the even more retro keyboards, and there—an undercut, bright brown eyes, fawn-like in both stature and features, and a signature cheeky grin that was, depending on the context, more threatening than sweetly exuberant.

“How so?” Wash turns his head up from the printer status, flashing up on a small screen below the two. “I must admit, I’m not familiar with the student body – as you know, I spend time putting away books North prefers not to, claiming it’s _difficult for him to reach down._ ”

“Who’s North?” Tucker asks, side-tracked.

“Guy at the front desk. Tall, leonine – you might see his twin around.” Wash tears his eyes back down, and Tucker notes then he is exactly four inches taller. Well, exactly is a stretch – Tucker’s never been good with guessing inches.

Tucker’s glad he was right about that connection. “Donut. Donut _definitely_ printed that – don’t, for fuck’s sake, go near him.”

“I might have gathered that idea, yes.” Wash grunts. “Though you know, it’s bad to judge simply on something that could be a joke. A stupid one, though. Actually, I retract that – this is ridiculous.”

“Trust me. I went to high school with him.” Adjusting the strap on his shoulder, he realises then he’s been edging closer to Wash. He leans in the opposite direction, catches sight of the scraping of Donut’s chair, and he begins to wander over. “Yeah, he’s coming. You might want to hide.”

“There’s more papers coming through I’m sorting,” Wash says, distractedly, hand running over the newly printed ink on paper, Tucker remembering how warm it could be – in winter, the harsh winter in the high school that often lost its heating, he went to the library there and printed off Internet articles for the sake of running his hands over the paper, like fresh wheat buns from a bakery.

“Oh, hey, Tucker!” Donut’s voice is high and clear. “Long time no see!”

“Yeah.” He hasn’t seen him for six weeks. Thank God.

“You should come to my yoga sessions,” he continues, carrying on a conversation Tucker, thankfully, has little input in. “It’ll be great. There’s a med student I met the other day in the home ec room – he proposed it! Let Simmons know!”

“Yep.” He looks at Wash, widening his eyes in _help me God._

Wash smirks, only slightly, the look in his eyes portraying amusement at Tucker’s situation.

“All right,” Donut says, face bright. “But you should know, Simmons did yoga with me after I was shot way back in junior. And Doc says it’s good I keep doing it.”

Tucker watches Wash’s face run cold, white, pale – and his eyes flick back to Donut, so nonchalantly referencing the time he fell asleep on his bus, ended up in a shadier district outside Blood Gulch, ran into a gang _and_ managed to get shot – accidentally, as he says, but there weren’t really accidents if you were blond and gave off a flamboyant vibe.

Nobody found it very funny when (or ever after that, really), late in the evening playing something Church had picked up for two dollars in the discount bin at the gaming chain store, Simmons, Grif, Church, and Tucker himself found out the status of Donut in the local hospital, stored away somewhere under harsh bright lights and a prediction of survival and things they shouldn’t have been dealing with then, nurses with soft voices saying comforting words – he’ll pull through, it only hit his stomach _and_ managed to miss his intestines and stomach by a good inch – a doctor with a stern face, who looked bored by the whole ordeal and mentioned something about who Donut was and why it probably happened. Grif did, incidentally, chew his head off (‘Hey _asshole,_ how about you do your _fucking job_ and not be a _dick_ ,’) and report it to the nurse with a grey bob and motherly smile. Simmons cowered in the corner. It’s very clear why – no wonder Simmons was such a mess of nerves.

“See you around,” Tucker says, watching him saunter off. His eyes flicker back to Wash, face now steely and hard and not reservedly cool like he – in the two days of knowing him – tended to be around Tucker.

“Dude, are you okay? You’re freaking me out.” Tucker tries to say it jokingly, like, _no big deal_ , but there’s an odd trace of concern he feels for the suddenly frozen Wash.

“Fine,” he says, curtly, voice cut. “I think you should find somewhere to study. Go.”

“What’s going on?”

“I said, go. I have work to do.”

The wall suddenly put up is something Tucker thinks he’ll interrogate about before class, next time. But his name would not be Tucker if he did not say so: “I don’t really wanna work. What if I go play solitaire?”

“Not my problem. I’ll get North to ban you.”

“Yeah, you’d get somebody _else_ to do the work—” The glare he receives is enough to send him off to sulk in the corner, grey carpet mixed with tiny specks of blue and red and green and yellow, a rounded wooden desk with puffy chairs designed to keep students pinned to their seats for hours, completing assignments the day before due date.

He does make sure he sits facing so he can watch Wash, which in all fairness is the only option. He puts on his best grimace and flicks his eyes up every so minutes in between _Upon her head a platted hive of straw_ _and_ _In clamours of all size, both high and low_ _– his notes were atrocious by the end, but he had the work done, which was the goal._

Simmons would probably laugh at him.

\--

There is nobody in the room when he returns, and the sun is already set and he can hear the hallway beginning to fill with chattering voices and he thinks, at this point, he will remain celibate for at least his freshman year, if not the entirety of his remaining schooling. He bemoans this into his pillow, the maroon heavy fabric curtain (something, Tucker suspects, was installed in his absence) flitters in the gentle breeze blowing through the yanked open window, moonlight streaming in lightly. It was befitting for his sour mood, for which seemed to have been brought on by circumstances that were above his head.

He _can’t_ sleep, so chooses to go bug Church, because wallowing in misery and a hard dick is worse than bearing witness to the interaction of he and Caboose.

Church has bloodshot eyes when Tucker knocks twice and the door opens, raises his eyebrows but allows Tucker in – the cobalt laptop sits on his bed, and Caboose’s bed is made neatly and is yet undisturbed.

“What do you want?” He returns to sit on his own bed, not looking up at Tucker.

“Bored.” They have mirroring positions, Tucker on the absent roommate’s bed. “Dick wasn’t wet enough.”

“Thanks for the mental image. Always appreciate it.”

He snorts rudely. “I have to live with Simmons. I can barely make a dick joke without him rolling his eyes.”

“That’s different how?”

With a shrug of his shoulders, he then hones in on the hickeys standing out plainly, blue and red on Church’s pasty neck. “It’s like the second day of classes and you’re getting laid. Goddamn.”

“She’s a bitch,” he mutters, “I didn’t get _laid,_ Tucker. Shit, is that all you think about?”

“No. But Shakespeare’s got some stuff to say on _count_ ry matters, if you get my drift. Though we’re not studying that one right now. Anyway, I could’ve been a playwright.” He gauges Church’s tedious stare. “Bow chicka bow wow.”

“I fuckin’ hate you, you know that, right?” He hastily puts his laptop to the side, closing it shut and craning his neck to the window. “Her name’s Allison.”

“First name basis, huh? Kinda close for only knowing her for so little.”

A set of rolled eyes and a huff and crossed arms come from Church. “Anyway, she’s a bitch. Total mean bitch.”

“Is that what those bites say?” He stops. “Kinda kinky.”

“Shut your fuckin’ mouth. She did more biting than anything else,” he mutters, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m not surprised you haven’t found a girl yet, though. Shitty fucking pickup lines.”

“I met a guy in my lit class.” Tucker halts himself there: “No, no, not like—shit, I really dug myself into that one.”

“Don’t be a baby,” Church says, more in a manner meant to say _pfft, so insecure about your sexuality_ than _calm yourself._ “What’s his name?”

“Wash. Washington. Blond dude who wears cat shirts.”

“Oh,” he draws out the vowel. “I know that dude. Cold asshole wouldn’t let me take a book out because I didn’t have my ID yet.”

“He threatened to get me banned if I play solitaire on the computers,” Tucker says, as a punishment like that was surely uncalled for – he may as well have broken out _Age of Empires_ or a first person shooter for the heinous association of _gaming_ and _school computers_.

“Y’know, I’m pretty sure there’s not limitations on college computers,” Church replies, raised eyebrow and all. “He was fucking with you.”

Tucker scowls and Church adds, tone reminiscent of when Tucker discovered who his roommate was, “You look bad with a face like that. Doesn’t suit you. Not menacing enough.”

“What, is it ‘cause I’m black?”

“Jesus Christ, Tucker,” Church says, lip upturned and skin dusty in the low light. “I’m just saying, your scowl is shit.”

He scowls.

“Well, at least you didn’t say ‘ _your face_ ’ as Grif would’ve. Idiot.”

“Miss me not annoying you all the time?”

“Fuck no.”

He goes to sleep quite soundly later after Church shows him threads on websites he frequented during class and fitted in his weekly quota of insults. He doesn’t know he’s on Caboose’s bed until he wakes up in the morning with Caboose’s bare head beside his and the sun not quite blinking.

An arm is wrapped across his chest so he very delicately (i.e. roughly) throws Caboose’s arm off and stalks out into the hallway, frigid, the atmosphere still and silent before anybody was up. His shower is freezing – water not yet heated yet, fuck Vic – and he tip toes with a towel around his waist (he can only get away with it this early) back to the dorm, cursing when he realises he forgot his key and can’t get inside.

He knocks and knocks and knocks and Simmons answers, bursts out laughing at the precarious state of Tucker’s coverage - lets him in, the dickhead.

\--

“Naked in the hallway,” Wash repeats, looking over his sorry plate of breakfast, light glinting every which way from the plastic and metal of the cafeteria, dark blond hair standing out in the room drained of colour and character. “Do you often avoid clothing, or is it just natural?”

“Bit of both,” Tucker replies through chewing, and winks for emphasis. He has become accustomed to the lowered lids of Wash when he is disappointed. He has also, seemingly, returned to his more sarcastic, thinly veiled disposition. Tucker does not like what went down in the library the other day and has not yet found an appropriate time to get touchy-feely. He does not do touchy-feely as a rule. He writes that in his books and beside his Virginia Wolf and Sylvia Plath work that Wash has forced on him, to the side of their current work.

It has now exactly been one week of classes and he has only now regaled the Tuesday incident to Wash; for an unexplainable reason, he felt it prudent to share something embarrassing to the story of Wash and the black cat that was his neighbour’s but, in horrifying fact, he had attempted to take home assuming it was a stray. The argument, as it goes, had gone back and forth: _well, Boy George looks underfed_ , valiant twelve year old Wash had said, and the neighbour with hands on hips had said _his name is_ Ghost, _and I fed him this morning!_ Little Wash replied: _you need to feed him six times a day, stupid._ He was scolded quite badly after that, apparently.

“They moved away shortly after that,” Wash muses, sipping bitter black coffee. The only way he drinks it now, apparently, after a rather bad stomach ache due to the cafeteria milk. Tucker does manage to drag his eyes away from the edge of the forest green cup.

“There’s an actual real party this Friday,” Tucker says after a minute of silence. “Somebody finally got their shit together and it’s over at B block.”

They have come to develop a routine of a few days – even Saturday and Sunday included. Meet for breakfast early, swap a bit of news as so and wander off to their classes. Tucker enjoys it meagrely, maybe.

“Great. I guess there’s going to be alcohol and general delinquency,” Wash says between a brush of his fringe to the side, which in some effortless way is more attractive than any shimmy of a body in a bar and it’s all questionable, for Tucker—so he considers how many cocktails and infusions of crème de menthe he can scarf down. It seems Wash picks up on this: “For the love of God, do not get drunk and vomit anywhere near my dorm.”

“What, are you in B block dorm?”

“Yes—don’t think you can memorise my room, either, and deliberately come and annoy me,” he tuts, a firm tone.

Tucker grins, cheekily, and shrugs his shoulders.

\--

He does not find himself enjoying the lecture on Shakespearean themes, Flowers’ voice far too happy for _any_ time of day, especially with that optimistic voice of his, so he kicks Wash’s chair in front of him and Wash turns his head, asking, “What is it?” in a hissing tone.

“I’m bored as fuck, dude.”

“Pay attention, then.”

“Why do I go to class?”

“Because if you don’t, you’ll ask me what you have to do for our assignments, and then I’ll have to do them for you and I’m _not_ letting that happen.”

Tucker is somewhat stunned by this observation, until, “Simmons told me how it works.”

“You know Simmons?”

“I went around to your dorm the other day, but you weren’t there.” His head flicks around to Flowers’ talking to somebody in the front row, then back. “I spoke to him for a bit.”

“Did he trip over his feet and ask for acceptance and friendship?”

“Tucker.” He does that _Jesus Christ_ look. “…Yes.”

“Yeah, he’s like that.” He scrunches up his nose, an echo to his ever-constant expression as a child. “He’s a fucking nerd.”

“That’s what Grif said.”

He stalks out of the lecture later with Wash by his side, which feels oddly comfortable and natural despite the fact they were so disparate, as individuals. He automatically heads for the library, autopilot that, Tucker believes, is at root Wash’s fault. It’s easy to blame him, now.

North, as his name goes, looks up as Tucker and Wash enter by the glass door covered in fingerprints underneath the handle, raises his eyebrows but has a serene smile.

“Hey, Wash,” he greets, friendly, nods to Tucker. “There’s some Roman texts to go away—Sigma also requested you get out some Mesopotamian stuff. Anything will do.”

Tucker stands awkwardly to the side, not sure what to do, so he taps his feet against the entrance way tiles, a light orange that reminds him of the diluted cordial he and Grif bought for less than a dollar for sixteen ounces when they were in senior year and living off liquid sugar for their exams.

He’s disrupted by Wash carting out the trolley with stacks of other books evidently not Roman, and he tilts his head so, says, “Well? Are you helping?”

“I hope I get paid for this,” Tucker responds, throwing his own bag besides Wash’s, now behind the desk.

“You won’t.”

He does, however, make sure to complain as much as possible.

“Fuck this,” he says, kneeling below Wash and handling a book on fishing and sewing and the interchangeability morally, _re: the industry on animals and the treatment of fish versus where the wool comes from housed sheep in abysmal conditions as Morrow confirms, see page 52—_

“Tucker, stop _reading_ the books and actually put them away,” Wash admonishes, standing above with an arched golden eyebrow that, Tucker figures out, he has placed much reverence upon. He may also be in a compromising position, his wonderfully innuendo-filled brain adds.

He quietly grumbles and finds the corresponding section and numbers and author and did he say he liked Dewey Decimal? Fuck Dewey Decimal. Dewey is an asshole.

“Okay, no, that’s—stop doing that, you keep putting computers in the maths section and that’s wrong,” is the next correction from Wash, “Also, I don’t know why you’re reading on Pythagoras. I know you don’t do philosophy either and that’s on his mathematic theorem and it’s obvious you’re avoiding work, Tucker.”

Tucker brings his head up – awfully close to Wash’s thigh – blinks twice, and Wash glares and says, “Stop that, as well,” then continues to drone on about _Pythagoras, hypotenuse_ and Tucker decides he hates maths, but he doesn’t mind Wash talking about it.

It’s possibly his best pickup line yet and he didn’t even say it out loud. (He mentally notes it for future usage).

\--

“I’m not going to the party,” Simmons insists, face set determinedly, arms crossed as he sat on his bed, with what appears to be a newly purchased quilt in a crimson colour with specks of gold and orange here and there. “You’re going to get drunk and wake me up at 1AM.”

“That’s what _normal_ college students do! Dude, free alcohol.” Tucker is as relentless as his roommate before him; he stands with arms crossed and, with his black dreadlocks piled upon his head in a wide bun, he looks as though ravens have taken home to his head; he believes his point is all the more convincing so.

His roommate resolutely decides to ignore him and read more from his textbook, which has morphed from _doing work_ to _how can I ignore Tucker today_?

Then – lightbulb, obvious way to drag Simmons along (he, in his fashion, wants to see a drunk Simmons who hasn’t touched alcohol since they raided his dad’s cabinet once and was grounded for a month): “Grif’s going.”

Simmons’ ears perk up at that but there’s no verbal response, but Tucker’s sure he’s won.

“Wash came by here the other day,” he finally does say, turning the page slowly, surely, and he looks up at Tucker. “Why’s that?”

Tucker shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know.”

Simmons is getting clever at his game. The upturn of his spectacles, gold-rimmed this new pair, his eyes hidden behind the light bouncing off the glass – there was something in Simmons’ sarcastic smile, something confident.

“At least I’m not the nerd that got beat up in high school,” Tucker chooses to mutter.

“At least I didn’t try to ask out a senior in freshman year, _and_ in front of the football team.”

When he goes on to breakfast after that, Simmons opting to skip, claiming ‘My stomach gets so twisted in the morning!’ he spots Wash waiting already with a tray for him, laid out with the expanse of what was available to eat (rather, what was _edible_ ).

“You know,” Wash begins, cupping his chin as Tucker sits himself sloppily down, “I haven’t ever asked what school you went to before this.”

“Oh, yeah, I thought it was pretty obvious, I mean,” he answers, spreads his hands out as though his slightly dishevelled appearance was a tell. Wash tilts his head.

“I don’t think your state of dress exactly makes it obvious. Questionable, though.”

“The high school, like, a couple of miles away—well, more like, 30 or something,” he says. “Yeah, I know, I didn’t need to live on campus if I lived so close by. But I didn’t really wanna stay home, and well, it was pretty cheap here.”

“So it’s like that for the rest of you?”

“From our high school?” Tucker hums. “Kinda dependent. I mean, my parents are split up and my mom works—okay, I’m no saint but I don’t want to be that college kid for her, y’know?—Simmons kind of…” He stops, not sure if it’s betraying Simmons for what he would say, though he’s got a good grasp on Wash and thinks, _all right_ (though he does choose to leave the Grif part out). “Religious, uptight kind of parents. Run with that. Donut—I think he just came because he thought it’d be fun.”

Wash takes all this in and they sit quietly for a while, Tucker watching other students walking around – perhaps some specifically and Wash, in particular, noting he was the kind to use his utensils properly and chew with his mouth closed, unlike half of his friends.

“What about Grif?”

“Oh, he just hates a commute. This place is pretty far away from where most of lived. Like, 40 miles? Maybe? I dunno. Not good with distances, Wash.”

Wash nods his head in recognition. “I see.”

“You know Church?” He waits for an answer but then elaborates, “Goatee and really green eyes – like, um, peridot? Yeah. I know that colour ‘cause I used it for a pickup line once.”

“It’s a gem. Is that how your lines often go, comparing eyes to jewels? Really?”

“Not _all_ of them. I’m way classy, dude.” It’s not like he expects Wash to accept that statement, but really, the disbelieving stare is _unnecessary_. “But anyway. Church wanted to go here so Caboose couldn’t find him.” He laughs at the idea. “Caboose turned out to be his roommate.”

“That didn’t turn out well?”

“I was _just_ waking up when I heard his stupid yelling.”

“Well.” Tucker smirks at the same time as Wash. He looks over the dining hall, and to his surprise spots Church covering the side of his face with one hand and the other rubbing his elbow, a girl with tightly pulled back blonde hair beside him, dressed in khaki and black and looking altogether menacing but with one side of her mouth upturned – the type who’d rather bite than kiss.

So it seems she’s worth pulling back the covers early and gracing actual _people –_ in the morning, of all times – for Church (his name somewhat ironic given he would not be awake until 10AM on a Sunday), who even in middle school exhibited introverted tendencies to rival that of secluded poets. He let Tucker in because of proximity – classes together, paired for projects because Church and Tucker just seemed to fit – and then eventually that grew to comfort and generally the bonds they formed then with Grif and Simmons who were misfits just the same. Church the lonesome, Tucker the Detroiter, Simmons the devout Catholic and Grif the Hawaiian that, in a phase at fourteen, carried an off-white surfboard with him outside of school just so he could ‘accidentally’ hit people on the head in shops and claim oh fuck, so sorry, I just want to catch some waves—neglecting, of course, the fact they were landlocked. But he was fourteen.

Donut and Caboose came in through some means Tucker doesn’t quite remember, maybe it was just after the period where Simmons insisted on raw cow’s milk, and they slotted in somehow. The blondie brought in baked goods every Friday to school and had Sunday in-house bakeoffs, wherein which Church would battle Grif to see who could make a better pizza base (invariably Grif won, the only activity he was good at was throwing dough in the air and catching it effortlessly); Caboose was the cheerleader for every event, big and small, everything they did had Caboose and his never-ending enthusiasm. The reason he stayed on the sidelines was because of when he used a tin-opener and tried to help Church in his quest for pizza-master, at the aforementioned Sunday cooking competition, he managed to slice Church’s thumb right open _and_ drop the tin on his foot.

He had stiches and a reason to be mad at Caboose for a very long time after that, and Simmons had to finish his pizza and remove the blood from the flour and yeast and water. Church complained about the capsicum and said, “I swear to fucking God, Caboose, if you go _anywhere_ – I mean _anywhere_ – near me with _any_ tool, whatsoever, I will fucking cut your thumb right open just the same you did to me.”

Then they land up here all assembled, some sort of fate sending Caboose here – miraculously so, but Blood Gulch, all of its academic institutions, weren’t so inclined towards judging on scores or finally SATs – instead more concerned about taking in the people with nowhere else, or the people who saw nothing else. The college is relatively cut off from the hub of business and residential area, but it served its purpose. A seclusion that could be viewed in a light that painted the fresh air and ravines as delightful, or a torturous prison for condemned students.

Yet then – in that moment, with Wash across from him looking, wondering what Tucker was thinking, probably – he feels a shift. Subtle shift. Perhaps for good or for worse, the obligatory change that happens as people grow older and move on from school to school to work and having children, if they can or do or want, and he expected this feeling to happen months before, during graduation, but that felt like a ride, an easy, natural ending: this, here, was it. He marks it in his mind and forgets it, when—

“I’m going to the library,” Wash says, standing abruptly and picking up his tray, a familiar sight now.

Tucker follows.

\--

It only occurs to Tucker later, saying a brisk goodbye to Wash after dinner – over an elaborate meal of pasta and a chocolate bar Tucker bought from the shared kitchens – that he hadn’t asked where Wash was actually from and who his friends were and if he watched _Power Rangers_ growing up or blew up the chemistry lab (as Simmons managed to do, although most of the evidence points toward Grif playing with the gas).

He might have vaguely picked up on the fact Wash seemed happier to listen than talk, but was more fixated at the fact he felt slightly bad about speaking only of himself and his own understanding of things. He almost dashes to the library shortly after speaking quickly with Flowers about the homework. As he arrives, Tucker finds Wash happily rearranging the _pick of the week_ stand, and he conveniently forgets his earlier worry.

Tucker returns his room – notices on the door Simmons has found a _plant more trees_ sticker and pressed it onto the wood – unlocks it to find Simmons with a laptop appropriately placed on his lap and a second one, turquoise, at the head of Tucker’s bed. The gramophone is playing a French song Tucker can’t pick.

“What’s playing?” he asks, setting down his bag and realising he must have stayed until very late in the library with Wash, watching him catalogue new books and help him place away returned ones – chat about this and that and authors Wash had finished procrastinating reading, _de Botton_ and Vassily Grossman.

“ _Non, je ne regrette rien_ ,” Simmons answers despondently, tapping away at his keyboard and the reflection of the screen on his glasses. A new pair: tortoiseshell.

“What did I tell you? Actually – what did me and _Grif_ tell you?”

“Shut up.”

“No, I’m pretty sure we didn’t say that _that_ time,” he corrects as he notes he’s far too tired to run for a shower, picks up the laptop out of curiosity and Simmons looks up.

“It was cheap.” He clears his throat. “So are you. You know. Appropriate.”

“A joke isn’t funny if you have to explain why you made it.” He places the _inexpensive_ gift on the little desk eaten up by the record player now blaring something jazzy and distinctly Simmons in taste.

“Yeah, well, you always explain yourself. Not funny. See?”

Tucker lifts his head up and stares at Simmons. “Seriously?”

“Shut up,” Simmons mutters, retreating to his usual line of defence and ducking his head down. “Hey…” he starts tentatively, and Tucker braces himself for another joke that falls flatter than Simmons in a pool, “Have you talked to your, y’know, mom yet?”

“Uhh…yes?”

“That’s a no then.”

“It’s definitely not a _no_ ,” he says, evading the idea it’s been over two weeks since he moved onto campus and said goodbye to her hurriedly as he picked up his two bags, with all his needed belongings and she drove off for work. “She’s busy.”

 _Busy_ was a synonym, understood now, for _working two jobs again_. Mainly because of the required upfront payment to the college and unfortunate denial of financial aid for his first year; he had been consoled with the fact that, a behind scenes agreement was a full year completed would give him the next three years with lowered fees if he passed all of his classes. It was fair enough but still, he disliked that even with the part time job he had had secured and then promptly lost once he hit the end of school, his mother still had to go on working. He knew she slept and worked and ate and cleaned and he felt, a small part of him, he didn’t want to inconvenience her with tales of Caboose and Church and the other insignificant things happening.

Simmons seems to understand this in a secondhand way, his own issues loud enough just from the way his shoulders slumped at the word _parents_ or _religion_ or something else that managed to crush any side of Simmons, though he managed a rebellious act or two: including not joining the volleyball team and sneaking off to mathletics – considered as dangerous as heroin – and hanging around with _those types_ (as his paranoid father put it)as though there was something contagious about it.

“Tomorrow’s the party,” Tucker adds.

“Great. Just what I need.”

“Homework?”

“And Grif’s.”

He won his bet so he’ll award himself with skipping out on doing work with Wash tomorrow and will opt to laze about – or _monkey about_ as Simons has been intent on for so long. Though he does feel bad about doing that, as North had said he could be the extra student he was looking for to fill in the extra duties that came along with more demanding professors and students, as the term began to spring to life fully, no drifting feeling of summer break left now.

So he did get paid for all the work in the end. There’s no fun in _not_ bitching and complaining to Wash, though, his forehead pinching in annoyance.

“What’d he get?” Tucker throws himself down on his bed, hears the rustle of Simmons squirming and shutting his laptop, then getting up to change into his pajamas – a shirt Tucker recognises as the one he picked up at a farmer’s market, an odd stall run by an old man (it has an aeroplane with _sky high_ printed across it in bold) – as well as pants with bananas across black nylon.

Tucker lays there dressed in his clothes from the day, a mix of denim and cotton, but has the courtesy to roughly throw his shoes off and hear, “ _Oh Sailor_ vinyl.”

“He knows what he’s doing.”

“I don’t know where he’s getting the money. Probably stealing it,” Simmons says, pulling back his blankets. “Can’t you change?”

“Uh, no.”

Simmons groans, switches the light off and turns over, the rustle of his sheets the last sign of movement in the room; the wind beat ceaselessly outside, trees bristling in the wind, then it showered for five straight minutes and stopped; Tucker crosses his fingers, before drifting off, that all leaks have been fixed properly on campus.

\--

He sleeps in, he knows it as soon as he awakes to the knocking on the door – loud, firm (Grif’s style is three sharp bangs then a kick – Church hammers with the end of his fist – Simmons is a polite four raps – Caboose hits his head on the door twice, waits a moment, then another time and a fourth for good measure – Donut is always a ‘ _Hey, open up or I’ll have to go around the back!_ ’)—definitely not anybody that’s knocked on his door before.

Wash stands before him with what appears to be a wrapped up sandwich in hand, a to-go coffee in the other, and a composed expression. His hair – impeccable – looks perhaps a centimetre longer, a slight curl to the end now. He has on that cat shirt, too, and Tucker notices up close there’s also white cats with little pink and blue bows.

“Done inspecting me?”

“Yeah—I uh, I just woke up,” Tucker says, hoping his disorientation and misplaced attention can be blamed on that, rubbing his eyes for effect. “What are you doing here, Wash?”

“Well, I sat in the cafeteria and you weren’t there—South and North have left for town to go clothes shopping, and so I figured. Well. You weren’t there.” His eyes are downcast as he holds out a sandwich wrapped in aluminium foil. “It’s ham. I think you prefer it.”

“Only decent one,” Tucker replies, taking it and stepping back. Wash doesn’t move so he raises his eyebrows.

“Oh, I should probably be off. I have a French class,” Wash says, crossing his arms.

“What time is it?”

“Noon.” He turns his head to face down the hallway, back to Tucker and nods his head then walks off, back in the direction of the stairwell down to the green.

Tucker rolls his eyes, figuring that’s the logical thing to do, but then also thinks ham _is_ his favourite, after all.

He whiles away the rest of the hours by figuring out how to connect his laptop to Wi-Fi and then looking up cat videos. And porn. A lot of that, actually, that by the time Simmons returns from his class he has to quickly zip his pants up and look completely nonchalant.

“ _Ugh_ ,” Simmons groans as he comes in, much the same to-do as the night before except roles reversed. “Could you not?”

“What?”

“You’re so red.”

“Virgin.”

“ _Pervert_.” He grumbles something about _unappreciative,_ then raises his voice, “I didn’t get that so you’d stain it with cum.”

“I’m not that dirty, c’mon.” He pauses, thinks. “Wait, is that what happened to yours last year?”

“I let Grif borrow it.”

“Ew, that’s actually kind of disgusting.”

“Go _shower_ , for fuck’s sake.”

Tucker crosses off all his windows and makes sure his history is clean, grabs clothes and heads off to the showers with his head bowed. It’s not like he _wants_ Simmons to walk in on him post-orgasm. But maybe it’s worth it, with the half-and-half angry and disgusted expression that could be framed, just about.

He guesses the party is beginning soon enough, in the second common room of campus – A and B blocks the two lucky dorms that are in proximity to them, closer than the rest that are scattered out around – and Simmons is likely _trying_ to find something applicable to wear, although he doubts it will be anything but an oversized jumper he’s stolen from Grif ( _tit-for-tat_ , he’d said, or _take all my fucking food and I’ll take your clothes_ ) and a pair of ripped jeans he insisted on wearing when having to dress up. Something about chic. Perhaps that’s what the new glasses were about – the second pair in a week.

Though he does wonder if he’s one to talk about effort, considering his often haphazardly assembled ensemble; denim denim denim, sometimes denim-on-denim (which apparently is a sin, but _ooh baby, I’ll show_ you _a sin_ ), and for variety suede and velvet that was thrust upon him by Simmons and his good grace.

And predictably he’s right when he spots Simmons leaning beside their door, looking oddly depressed or perhaps simply melancholic, which is what he often dips into when left to linger in open public places.

Church steps out of his room at that moment too, with no Caboose in tow, thank God – the last thing they need is Caboose and alcohol. His friend seems to understand this, says, “He could probably kill me fucking sober.”

“Says something more about you than him,” Tucker replies, falling into step beside him as Simmons tows behind them. Church shoves his shoulder.

“How’s my _of_ fense?”

“Pretty weak.”

“Go suck a dick.”

“Well,” Tucker says as he leans his head forward to survey for any more mouth-shaped bruises and splotches on Church’s neck – he finds three. “Oh woah. Nice.”

With a very angered expression, Church stubbornly unfolds his collar and flicks it up to cover the hickeys. “ _Fuck off._ At least I’m getting some.”

“Finally? Man, I was waiting. Had a little journal and everything wondering when you’d get laid.”

The temperature has dropped, October having heralded a chill to sneak into the night, and the campus at this time of day was ghostly, haunting, with some flickering lamps lighting the way over to Wash’s dorm, his common room now host to a big freshman party.

“So when are you getting laid then, Tucker?”

“I fucked your mom, that’s when.”

Church covers his face as their feet crunch along the ground and Simmons makes a small noise of mixed embarrassment and amusement. “Jesus Christ,” Church says. “Don’t come near me again.”

“Sweet mental im—” Tucker tries to say but is cut off by a roughly thrown punch from Church, but his aim has never been very good and Tucker easily dodges it.

“ _I’m_ the dude who won you all the toys at the fair, remember that. Your aim’s shit.”

He hears, characteristically, Church talking to himself after that, and they find themselves at their destination; they know so before that, from the shockingly loud Jay Z playing – Simmons scoffs, the _hoi polloi_ – but Church looks pleased, whose music taste varies between trashy pop and metal that makes Tucker prefer beating his head with a frying pan. Which Church did once.

Someone’s even managed to decorate the room with crepe paper and set up a couple of flashing lights, a disco ball that looks like something Simmons would drag out from the corner of a yard sale, and Church says, “See you later, fuckers.” He immediately dives for the alcohol, picking a drink far too blue to be natural.

“Oh! There’s Sarge!” Simmons exclaims, something nostalgic for Tucker about his exuberance which is the kind he reserved for an art teacher he was fond of.

Tucker follows him, figuring himself more polite than Church.

“Hi Sarge!” Simmons says, standing beside a man of average height, hair completely grey and face completely shaved; in his eyes there seems to be something distinctly cynical but also perhaps blackly humourous.

“Hel’o Simmons,” Sarge drawls back in a strong, tough Southern accent, the kind that inspires the Gothic and the religious, Texan breweries and farms with owners that found their way on television and complained about the politicians going too far with diversity or too slow with economic growth, both contributing factors to the crop failing.

“This is Tucker,” Simmons introduces politely. “Tucker, Sarge.”

“’Sup.”

Sarge grunts.

“What are you doing here?” Tucker asks, wanting to get his curiosity out of the way and greeting so he can find some drinks as efficiently as Church had.

“Makin’ sure you buncha idiots don’ drink y’ur heads off,” he responds, curling each word in his strong accent. He squints at Tucker. “I’m not draggin’ y’ur drunk asses back to y’ur dorms. At leas’ not if ya vomit.”

Tucker snorts. “That’s what my friend said about this building, too. He’s a bit of a hard ass.”

Sarge contemplates him closely. Simmons swallows and squeaks to Tucker, “Could you get me a drink?”

“Yeah.” He rolls his shoulders as he goes to find ginger ale, something like a cheap beer for Sarge and – his own guilty pleasure – what looks to be a fluorescent green drink and _might_ be the kind he favours, vodka cruiser and some lime favoured soda and a few other additions that always turn Tucker’s stomach into a bouncing castle.

And, he’ll admit readily, he did glance about the crowd and try and find Wash. Wash is not the type to go to parties like this one – maybe a close friend’s – but, still, there’s that kind of futile wish that tends to come along with somebody who brings you a sandwich when you don’t turn up for breakfast, as your shared schedule went.

Sarge doesn’t accept his drink graciously but does seem to warm up a little, saying, “This’ll be my only one. Gotta keep an eye on you.”

It would be threatening, except Tucker can assume this is as friendly as he gets: a veiled threat that also is a sort of protection.

He bumps into Grif, too, who gives him a single look of sarcastic glee – _oh boy, am I excited to be surrounded by_ idiots – but he pats him on the back. “Simmons is over there. Better go meet the dad.”

“Hey, Tucker, do you know why we’re friends?”

“Not really, no.”

Tucker ends up drifting into a corner – unlike him, for the parties he’s attended – lurking. When he drifts past Sarge and Simmons he hears a clipped argument—

“Uh, what?” Grif, of course.

“I said, dirtbag, what sort o’ nancy drinks _cocktails_?”

“The kind of person that doesn’t drink shitty beer. I mean, the real kind is in Hawaii. I don’t see Hawaii close by.”

“I’ll just draw the island over here wi’ a fishin’ pole, shall I? How ‘bout that?”

“How about I let Simmons go back to kissing your ass.”

 _“Hey!_ ” is Simmons’ indignant exclamation, so Tucker rolls his eyes and grabs a beer and wanders off again, spotting a few cute girls he tries his best lines on but all of them brush him off, so he returns to his corner and proceeds to make rounds now and then, drinking more and nodding his head along to the beat of _Fucked in Love_ which, in Tucker’s royal opinion, is simultaneously a terrible modern knock-off of 80’s beats and he also really likes it, and probably looks sad now leaning in a corner of a room filled with various levels of drunk freshman.

He spots a pair both seated in the few chairs left, not pushed to the side – one looks Korean, maybe, with hair pulled up into a ponytail and piercings and what looks to be orange star tattoos all up his arms; the other is more tanned than Grif, hair cut neatly and one singular curl coming down from the front, the rest of it tied in a knot – he’s sitting up straight in his chair with what looks to be a simple plastic cup of alka seltzer.

They give him a terror up his spine when the first one looks in his direction and smirks, devilish. His instinct tells to _move move move,_ but his legs feel like lead with the alcohol heavy in his bloodstream, and his head is light and he’s a balloon tethered to the ground by a heavy rock. He does make it to grab another drink and gulps it down in two hits – teetering off from _tipsy_ to _very drunk hello_ – so he pats Simmons on the shoulder and Simmons tuts him, looking to be nursing what his first drink was.

He checks his wristwatch – something, again, Simmons has forced on him – and finds it to be 10PM. He’s been by himself, no chicks, for at least four hours. Four hours of drinking back and forth and listening to songs DJ’d by somebody with music taste as terrible as Donut. Speaking of. He is nowhere to be found.

Stumbling out of the common room is his best bet with a dizzy head, but he trips on the penultimate step and ends up lying in the grass, but gets up again and finds his way over to a tree. Cool grass. Stable tree.

He’s not sure how long he sits there until a pair of arms pull him up and loop an arm around his shoulder – he panics, thinking it’s those two from earlier that are dragging him away somewhere to kill him or something and he goes through the motions of figuring out where to hit to get away, and he swallows twice.

“Tucker,” he hears, a stern voice talking into his ear. “Could you please actually try to walk? Just a bit?”

 _Oh_ , he inwardly sighs with relief, a big enormous relief because, in his beautifully inebriated state, Wash is an oasis. “Shit, fuck—thank fuck it’s’ou, Wash.”

“Yes. I don’t think it was very safe, leaving you passed out there. You’re lucky I was coming back from the library,” Wash murmurs. “Do you have your key?”

“Simmons does.”

“Hmm.” Wash stops and turns them around, now walking back in the direction of his dorm, though Tucker doesn’t notice that except for the hand now around his waist, holding him up.

“Those cats. Why do you have a cat shirt?”

“I like cats.” There seems to be a social cue for Tucker not to continue, but well—he _is_ awfully drunk.

“Why?”

“Well,” Wash begins, speaking as though to a child but it’s mostly because keeping Tucker occupied with insignificant things is best to do in this state. “They are very good companions. And quite cute.” Tucker does not notice the way Wash’s eye glance at him.

They’re back in the loud music, and were it not for Wash’s swift navigation of the crowd Tucker would have probably gone back to get another drink – feeling safe now with Wash – but the tight hand stops him so he slowly walks up the flight of stairs. He doesn’t take note of what room Wash unlocks or what it exactly looks like. There’s two beds but the second bed doesn’t look inhabited, as much as Tucker can ascertain. Wash gingerly sets Tucker down on it, steadying him.

“Take your shoes off.”

Tucker can do that, considering the boots he’s thrown on that slip on and off and he collapses on the bed, drunk and everything Wash said _not_ to be if he came anywhere near his dorm. He can almost hear Wash and the disappointment in his sigh.

“Drink this,” Wash commands, passing a water bottle, so Tucker sits up again and downs all of it. “Good. That will help with a hangover.” As though logic applies to drunk Tucker (or sober, which is nice for the likes of Wash).

Wash turns his light on and sits on his bed, and even in that state Tucker can feel the stare. “What?” he asks.

“How much did you have to drink?”

“Not much.” He rolls over. “Enough to trip down stairs.” He slurs his words but they’re still coherent, mostly.

“That’s too much. But then again, it’s you.” He hears a sigh. “Don’t do that again.”

“You shoulda had the lime ones. Damn. Sweet.” There’s something else he says but even he himself doesn’t understand it, but there’s ‘Wash’ in there.

“Go to sleep.” He can get behind that. Though Tucker reopens his eyes, _coincidentally_ when Wash is taking off his top—one pearly white button at a time, as though they would pop off with a single hand of roughness, then pulling it over his shoulders (he’s the kind that irons his underwear), hanging it up on a coat hanger beside his bed.

He’s definitely got some nice arms. And Tucker may also (he does) keep watching until he’s seen all of Wash, and well, if this happens again the _next_ time he is explosively drunk – he’ll drink a gallon of whiskey. (Rational part of his mind says it’s _very_ rude and unfair to do this, but he’s _very_ drunk and will deal with the moral consequences in the morning – including addressing the fact, in his right mind, ogling Wash whilst drunk is no excuse – or, of all things, Wash _knew_ he was looking, and—)

\--

Fuck mornings. Mornings suck. The sun sucks. Student loans suck and textbooks are exorbitantly priced and he’s going to get Wash to teach him how to find .pdf’s of the books he needs next semester or year or whatever.

He’s also never going to touch alcohol again; he will become monk-like, practice veganism to purge his body of the mind-blowing headache and maybe drink beetroot juice to cleanse his teeth. Or something equally hippy and herbalist-encouraged.

In fact, he might just open up a church. Ban Leonard Church from it, too – Tucker’ll be the prophet of sex and good luck and abstaining from alcohol.

“Not feeling too well?”

“Fuck you.”

“Be that way, then,” he hears Wash says obstinately, opening the curtain on the west window in the room and the sun pouring in like a sour reminder of all the mistakes Tucker made over roughly four hours the previous night.

“Close them, dude!”

“No.” Tucker’s eyes are open and he watches a fully clothed Wash fiddle with his hair in the small mirror above his bed.

“Uh oh.”

“What?”

 _He totally slept with Wash, didn’t he. Oh god. He’s gone and fucked it all up. Him and bedrooms will only equal sex. Not that he’s had sex yet. So that’s that theory out the window_ —

“You look worried.” Wash narrows his eyes. “Did you do anything last night?”

With that question he immediately calms down – not so concerned with the fact _male_ and more so concerned with _Wash_ , good _Lord,_ he’d probably stumble through it terribly considering his pickup lines can’t even save him. Tucker quickly sits up and regrets it, but weathers it and says, “No, um. You know. Hangover. It’s bullshit.”

“Right.” Wash turns around with a guided expression and Tucker notes then his eyes are reflecting the sun’s beams quite nicely. “Breakfast?”

“I’d go take a shower or something but yeah. Breakfast. Thank god for Saturdays.” He smiles, despite the pounding pain and blinding light. Wash offers him a hand and he takes it, they walk out and lock the door. Tucker doesn’t know they’re still holding hands – well, it’s warm, _forgive him_ – until they’re about to go down the stairs and Wash releases his.

The cafeteria is absent of most students – it’s apparently almost on the dot their usual time, early for a weekend also – and a few janitors and groundsmen sit in the opposite side of the hall, eating quietly.

“I’m heading out with Connie on a hike later,” Wash says between sips of fresh coffee. “Don’t forget to study Woolf, I did give you that book—keep in mind, she was brought up quite upper class, there’s some overt classicism…” Wash’s words turn into just his voice as Tucker considers Connie – she is the short brunette, as Tucker recalls, with sweet manners and a ballet-esque way of standing that was with Wash in the library the other day – and also considering the extracurricular work Wash seems to think sharing is interesting.

He waves goodbye to Wash then, half of his own breakfast left and he sits there, sombrely staring at the mess of hardboiled eggs and his fork, dejectedly leaning on the side of the plate.

Simmons eventually creeps in beside him, their first proper breakfast together. “Hi,” he greets shortly.

He finishes his cold food and Simmons gives him the bacon he picked up extra for him.

“Sarge hates Grif,” Simmons says, dabbing his mouth with a napkin. “And Grif hates Sarge.”

“Does this mean your dad won’t let you marry Grif?”

“What?” Simmons stops, realises—“Shut up.”

“C’mon. Face it. Sarge has been nicer than your own—”

“Shut _up_ ,” Simmons demands, almost dangerously if he wasn’t Simmons. “You should work on that book Wash left you.”

“Not you too.”

“Use the laptop I bought you,” Simmons says, pursing his lips and cupping his chin. “Where did you go last night?”

“I got really drunk and Wash found me under a tree after I tripped down some stairs,” Tucker explains, listlessly, remembering the dull thud underneath his forehead and behind his eyes. At least the soft, mellow colours of the dining hall this time of the morning are not oppressive.

“So why didn’t you come back?”

“I didn’t have my key and Wash let me stay in his room.” Tucker’s eyes meet Simmons’. There’s a _fucking say it, Simmons_ that he tries to convey with his eyes, but.

“Is that all, huh? That all?” His voice goes higher and higher, like an excited squirrel.

“Yeah. What’s up with you, Simmons?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

Admittedly he does actually study the work left – answers the questions, also, all vague and ambiguous ones Tucker knows, absolutely, Wash has written them. Were it not for the neat and straight, capitalised handwriting, he would have still been able to guess easily. Especially the little sarcastic remark on the last one: _So you’ve made it this far, well done._

He can _hear_ the patronising tone in it, hear it in Wash’s voice. He clears his throat and finds some straight porn but that apparently doesn’t work, so opts for the next idea that comes to his mind and oh _fuck_ , there’s a pale freckly boy in this one—even though Simmons doesn’t pick up on it later when he comes back from the library with five different books on Protestantism and the Third Reich, there’s still something that makes Tucker unable to meet his eyes. He was so fucked.

And he does actually wait for Wash, hearing the almost too-quiet tick of his watch, until the text comes to the phone he often forgets about, mainly because there was a secret pact amongst them all that why bother with modern technology to communicate when you can knock on each other’s houses’ doors, or throw pebbles at windows – but nonetheless, he gave Wash his number more out of convenience than anything. So as it went:

 _Lunch_?

He almost bounds out of the room – knowing full well he could have been lounging outside, though something kept him cramped up in the room with Simmons – and he hurries down and ignores the brooding storm clouds which signal a thunderstorm of a strong kind, in Blood Gulch, and there’s Wash in a different pair of clothes – a fitted three-quarter length aqua top. Tucker half-misses the cat shirt, only minimally.

“So Simmons tells me Tucker is your last name,” Wash says over their lunch. A new part of their routine is Wash getting both their lunches, apparently the lady with the purple lipstick nodding knowingly when he did so now. “What’s your first?”

“How did you find out from Simmons?”

“Texting.”

It’s an unsatisfactory answer, so Tucker presses, “Why were you talking about me?”

“He brought it up,” Wash says defensively. “He said his name is Richard.”

“Huh, well, mine’s Lavernius.”

“That’s – quite a, ah – proud name.” Wash looks down at his sandwich and seems to be wondering the point of its existence, or his, from what Tucker can gather.

“What’s yours?”

There’s no answer so Tucker continues eating thoughtfully – not quite so, more on the fact he can’t understand what’s so hard about a first name, but whatever, he reasons.

“David.” Wash—David looks up at him. “But I prefer Wash now.”

“Yeah. I like Tucker better.”

“There’s something symbolic about choosing your own name, I guess,” Wash says between chewing and drumming his fingers on the table. “Its own meaning to you.”

“I just couldn’t spell Lavernius so my mom said just go by Tucker.”

“How old were you then?”

“Probably like four. It’s kinda stuck.”

“Some things do stick, yes.” Wash smiles that funny half-smile Tucker’s grown accustomed to very quickly. “Do you want to go sort some books?”

Off they go, out as it begins to rain – they run to the library and Tucker says Wash looks like a wet cat. He’s dumped with putting away all of the books, while Wash will watch and ‘ensure the job is actually _done_.’

“Hey, I did the Woolf work you left me,” Tucker defends himself, tongue out pensively as he figured out where _Cookery of China: Extended Edition feat. Worldwide Herbs_ exactly went. He turns to notice Wash staring at him, undecipherable. “What? I swear, I did it. Simmons even checked it.”

“Right,” Wash says, back to unconvinced pseudo-teacher. He crosses he arms and leans beside the trolley that had become their shared vehicle for manoeuvring books about – Tucker normally pushing and Wash instructing.

“There’s a roast special tonight,” Tucker says, reading the blurb on the back of a book on the _Electronic Age_. “You wanna get those twins down with us too?”

“All right. And Simmons?”

““Oh, Caboose and Church. And Grif, dude."

“Sounds like a date, then.”

He only absently listens to Wash's remark, slots the book in his hand into his rightful place with some extra pressure.“Yeah, Wash.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! ♡


End file.
